kz1000 mkII oil cooler plumbing.

hey guys im plumbing an oil cooler to go on my kz1000 j i have a Derale cooler, a lockhart oil thermostat. and i grabbed some fittings from the junkyard. i got some old Earls braided line with hose ends also. but it leaked a bit so i have to replace it. serves me right for deciding to try hose from a junkyard but oh well. wondering what i should replace it with. what differance will it make on cooling if i got with stainless steel, nylon braided, or regular old rubber? i was also considering (just for coolness factor) converting it to AN fittings. any ideas?

I run solid Aluminum lines to mine. This actually helps the cooling quite a bit, because the surface of the Aluminum lines is quite large, and Aluminum dissipates heat extremely well.

aluminium lines? do you have to bend them to fit?

Yes you do have to bend them. a tubing bender is cheep. and you can get the lines at any appliance store or hardware store. I bought mine at McMaster-Carr allong with all the required plumbing. The thing I did not like about reinforced rubber hoses was that they were so Huking Fat and Gaudy.

otakar wrote:

I run solid Aluminum lines to mine. This actually helps the cooling quite a bit, because the surface of the Aluminum lines is quite large, and Aluminum dissipates heat extremely well.

Do you have a picture of you installation and if so, would you be able to post it. Thanks.

i love the idea of the aluminium lines thats pretty sweet. but for this project i have a bunch of stuff to go with the hoses already. i just dont know what i should get and which has an advantage over the other.

The nice part about hoses is that it is simple. Aluminum with Flair fittings is not much harder though. As soon as I pull out the bike from storage in the spring i will post some pictures.

The website www.earlsserviceshop.com sells oil coolers,lines and fittings that probably will work.

I just took a look at that web sight. Boy, one thing I never thought of was using Gas-Flex hose to hook up an oil cooler. By the time the oil gets into the cooler, the cooler is no longer needed. plus bending the line is no problem. The only thing remaining to solve is attaching a fitting at one end. Modern Gas-flex is Stainless steel and would last forever.

Just looked it up and found out that all gas flex lines come with a choice of 3/8 or half inch stainless connectors and come in lengths starting at 12" and in increments of 6". The hoses are available in 3/8 OD and 1/2 OD. Coming Spring I am changing over to Gas-Flex lines. MFolks, thanx for the revelation.:silly:
www.plumbingstore.com/gasconnectors.html

I did forget to mention something about Gas-flex, that is if it is a bit too short, it can be stretched out quite a bit.

are you running them over top? around the block?